According to statistics from analytics company Similarweb, the OpenAI technology integration with Microsoft-owned Bing has increased traffic to the underutilized search engine and helped it better compete with market leader Google in terms of page visit growth.
The statistics collected through March 20 show that page visits on Bing have increased by 15.8% after Microsoft introduced its AI-powered version on February 7. This is in contrast to a nearly 1% fall for the Alphabet-owned search engine.
Because to the technology underpinning ChatGPT, the well-known OpenAI chatbot that many experts have dubbed AI’s “iPhone moment,” the data are an early indication of the lead the Windows manufacturer has seized in its quick-moving competition with Google for generative AI domination.
They also highlight a unique chance for Microsoft to gain ground in the more than $120 billion global search business, where Google has held a monopoly with a share of more than 80% for decades.
D.A. Davidson & Co. analyst Gil Luria expects Bing to likely gain market share in search over the next several months, particularly if Google continues to put off integrating generative AI into their software.
The majority of users have had access to Bing AI since February, but Google’s chatbot Bard has only recently started to be made available to the general public as of Tuesday.
“Bing has less than a tenth of Google’s market share, so even if it converts 1% or 2% of users it will be materially beneficial to Bing and Microsoft,” Luria said.
According to app analytics firm Data.ai, Bing app downloads increased eight times globally after AI integration. The data shows that downloads of the Google search app decreased by 2% during that time.
Yet, several observers believed that Google, which in the early 2000s dethroned Yahoo to become the leading search player, might overcome the early hurdles to keep its lead.
“Google’s ranking algorithm can have a competitive edge over that of competitors”, Yongjei Jeong, an analyst at Mirae Asset Securities in South Korea said about how Google’s algorithm helped it beat Yahoo Search.
